


Crowley, Meet Crowley

by The_Buzz



Series: Advent Calendar [5]
Category: Good Omens, Supernatural
Genre: Crowley meets Crowley, Gen, Season 9, Some Character Stuff, Some Humor, Some Plot, Supernatural and Good Omens happen in different universes, Unexplained Portal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5748163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Buzz/pseuds/The_Buzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Crowley falls through a portal that mysteriously appears in his office, the last thing he expects is to land in a bookshop in Soho where an angel and a demon with his name are spending time together. Nor does he expect to be dragged immediately into a 1927 Bentley and taken for a ride. The whole experience, however, leads him to rethink a few things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crowley, Meet Crowley

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series of prompts that I filled leading up to the holidays as a present for a friend (hence, the "Advent Calendar" series). The prompt for this story was: Supernatural Crowley and Good Omens Crowley compare notes on their respective Hells.

The giant swirling portal had appeared right smack dab in the middle of Crowley’s mansion office. It was such an, inconvenient, pain in the ass, totally absurd thing that he assumed immediately the Winchesters or their pet angel had something to do with it. But a few reports from his various spies later had only confirmed that the Winchesters appeared to be vacationing at some sort of ear-drum- and soul-shattering concert by a washed out rocker, and the angel hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks. The portal was at least five feet across, and made a low roaring sound at all hours of the day like a whirlpool. He’d already lost a good rug to it.

It would have been just an inconvenience if not for—you guessed it—the Winchesters. He’d been just getting up from his desk to make his way around the portal and out to the hall (he hadn’t had a chance to move his office yet, on account of piles of paperwork and a big snafu in the Soul Collection department), when who but Dean Winchester had to ring him on his mobile phone. No matter how hard he tried, Crowley couldn’t help the little thrill of excitement he felt at seeing “Not Squirrel” appear on his phone. He liked to joke about it, but when it came down to it, Dean really  _was_ his best friend, and since he and Dean had gone together to get the First Blade he’d barely heard from him at all. Crowley was so excited, in fact, that he forgot to step around the portal and fell right in.

He landed on a dusty floor in a dim little room, where a short blonde man in a sweater vest and a tall young man in sunglasses appeared to be drinking wine together at a small table. They both jumped up—neither of them particularly steady—and one said, “Oh dear!” while the other drawled, “Well, that doesn’t happen every day.”

Crowley groaned and looked up at the ceiling, where—surprise surprise—there was a five-foot-wide swirling portal. The rug he’d lost to it was rolled up and leaning against a wall. He pushed himself to his feet and started brushing the really, truly copious amounts of dust off his blazer and adjusting his tie.

He gave both a men a quick smile. “Hello. Didn’t expect to be dropping in. You won’t mind if I just pop back through, do you?”

Both men snapped and suddenly appeared considerably more sober.

“I wouldn’t recommend that, dear,” the short man said. “We’ve tried putting things through it. They usually end up, well, --“

“Burnt to a crisp,” the tall man finished, not sounding too broken up about it.

The short man held out his hand. “I’m Aziraphale,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Crowley,” Crowley said, shaking his hand.

The man in sunglasses folded his arms. “How did you know that?”

“How did I know what?” Crowley echoed. “It’s my name.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Sunglasses. “It’s my name. We can’t have the same name.”

Crowley blinked at him, a little lost for words.

Sunglasses looked at Aziraphale and snorted. “Next, I suppose he’ll say he’s a demon as well.”

Crowley’s jaw dropped. “I am a demon.”

Sunglasses took off his sunglasses, revealing slit yellow eyes. “You’re no demon. I’ve never seen you before.”

“Perhaps you should show us your wings,” Aziraphale said, apparently trying to be helpful.

“I don’t have wings,” Crowley said, truly beginning to wonder where in God’s name he had ended up. “My name is Crowley. I’m the king of Hell. Where am I and who are you?”

“Oh, dear,” Aziraphale said again.

“Angel, please, wait here,” Sunglasses said. (He had put them on again after squinting at Crowley for a few seconds.) Now, he took Crowley by the elbow and started tugging him out of the small room and through stacks and stacks of dusty books, and finally out to a street that Crowley recognized immediately as London.

“That was an angel?” Crowley gaped. He’d never heard of angels and demons spending time socially. Where _was_ he?

“He might be.” Sunglasses pulled him over to the curb where a very nice, vintage Bentley had amassed an impressive number of parking tickets. Sunglasses snapped his fingers and the tickets turned into a bunch of crickets that all started hopping away. Then he opened the passenger door and looked at Crowley expectantly. “We’ll talk in here,” Sunglasses announced.

“…Why?” Somehow, Crowley felt even more lost than he had five minutes ago.

“Because whatever Hell is playing at by sending you here, I’m not involving him,” Sunglasses said decidedly. He waited until Crowley sat in the passenger’s seat, then plopped himself down in the driver’s seat and closed the door. Starting the car without bothering with the key, he pulled away and started driving around the block. Other cars and pedestrians seemed to leap out of the way without meaning to, or perhaps it was the car that was doing the leaping. It made Crowley vaguely nauseous, and even more lost.

“So,” Sunglasses said. “You claim you’re a demon, with my name, but you’ve got no wings and you’ve never heard of me or Aziraphale. And you just popped in to, what, say hi?”

“I fell in," Crowley said irritably. "And I’d really like to be getting back. I don’t mean any harm to you or your…angel. Where are you taking me?”

“So Hell didn’t send you,” Sunglasses said, ignoring his question completely.

“No,” Crowley said adamantly. “ _Hell_ did not send me. No one _sent_ me. There is a portal in my floor and I…fell in. Anyway, I’m the King of Hell. I would know if Hell was up to anything.”

“ _You’re_ in charge of Hell,” Sunglasses said skeptically. “Actually, I’m fairly sure, Lucifer is in charge of Hell. And he would not hesitate to string you up and skin you if he heard you talking that way. You’re not really a demon, are you.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, then flicked them to red. (Sunglasses had not been paying very much attention to the road as it was, and he definitely saw.) Then Crowley pointed a finger and used his demonic power to pick up a surprised pedestrian and deposit her back on the side of the road she’d been trying to cross from. "Demon," he explained.

“But you don’t have any wings,” Sunglasses said.

“No!” Crowley said with frustration. They still driving, and it occurred to Crowley to be anxious that they were going to leave the bookshop—and the portal—behind entirely. “Why in all of bleeding creation would I have wings?”

Sunglasses blinked, and suddenly there were sleek white wings filling the cabin of the Bentley. They had clearly split his coat coming out. He blinked again and they were gone, the coat repairing itself meekly.

“All demons have wings,” Sunglasses said, as if it were obvious. “We were all angels, once. As much as a Downstairs would like to stamp that out of us, they haven’t managed yet.”

“Not where I’m from, mate,” Crowley sighed. "However it works here, in this world of yours...I was certainly never an angel."

"What were you?"

“I was human, once. Died, went to Hell, was tormented for what amounted to several thousand years—time in Hell is funny, you know—and then I was reborn…in a way. What happens to your tormented souls?” Crowley added.

“Well…we torment them…” Sunglasses said awkwardly.

“S’pose that makes sense,” Crowley said.

The scenery they were passing looked very familiar, and Crowley realized with relief that they were just driving in circles. Crowley found that, despite it all, he was curious about this other Crowley, from a world where demons were angels and Lucifer still ruled. 

“So, what do you do?” Crowley asked. “For Hell, I mean. Your position.” 

Sunglasses looked proud, his mouth quirking into a smile. “I tempted humanity. Swayed them toward our side. You know. The standard demonic mission.” His smile faded. “Honestly, since the apocalypse-that-wasn’t I can’t say I’ve done a lot whole of it.”

“You tempt souls?” Crowley asked, also very curious about the apocalypse-that-wasn’t but finding this to be the thing that required the most explanation. “How exactly?”

“Oh, you know…” Sunglasses made a vague gesture. “Find ways to sway them to do the wrong thing, be bastards to each other. I was rather good. Why? What does your hell do?”

“Deals,” Crowley said. “They don’t need any help being bastards. But we like to have a little security, you see. They sell their souls, and all the uncertainty is gone. Doesn’t matter how good they are the rest of their lives, we’ve got ‘em. Better use of our demons’ time, really. Did you know, I’ve increased soul acquisitions by six percent since I took over?” The meeting in which he’d learned this had been horrendously boring, but he _was_ rather proud.

“…Good for you,” Sunglasses muttered, sounding a bit jealous.

Crowley sighed. “So. Do you believe me now? I’m not here from your Hell to make life difficult for you and your angel friend.”

“Yeah,” Sunglasses said, and took a turn that Crowley hoped meant they were heading back to the bookshop and portal.

“So,” Crowley said, after the silence between them had stretched about for about ten more seconds than he was comfortable with. “You said ol’ Lucy’s still in charge around here?”

“Yeah,” Sunglasses grunted again.

“Huh,” Crowley said. “You know, in my universe he was locked in a cage for most of human history, anyway. Got out for about a year and caused some mayhem, but a few, er…friends of mine put him back in.” Well, Dean was his friend anyway. Or he had been. Crowley was pretty sure.

“Not here. He’s about as powerful as any being gets around here,” Sunglasses said, then gave him what Crowley assumed was a searching look. At least, he turned his sunglasses to Crowley for a while. The Bentley zoomed around several unsuspecting people on bicycles. “So, these friends of yours. Demons?”

Crowley gave a soft snort. He'd certainly _thought_ about what he might do with the First Blade. “Not generally.”

“So that’s all right, then?” Sunglasses sounded hopeful. “Where you come from. Demons consorting with…non-demons. They weren’t angels, were they?”

“No,” Crowley admitted. “Humans. I did once make a deal with an angel to pull all the souls out of Purgatory, though.”

Sunglasses just looked sad. “Angel and I’ve been friends for a thousand years. Downstairs still sends me threatening messages weekly.”

“I see,” Crowley said, not quite sure what to do with Sunglasses’ sad tone. “What are they threatening?”

“Oh, you know,” Sunglasses said, making another vague gesture. “Eternal torment. Don’t dare getting closer. Definitely don't tell him how you feel, or they'll drag me down and broken all my bones and put me on the rack and cut me into a dozen pieces, the usual. If I hadn't sent the bastards so many souls this past millennium, I'm sure they'd've started already.”

“Ah,” Crowley said delicately. “Sounds a bit medieval to me.”

“I have tried to tell them that,” Sunglasses said.

“My Hell’s much more modern,” Crowley felt compelled to point out. “My best demons are highly educated, and we have quarterly meetings to discuss soul projections and plan out new strategies. Our torments range from the traditional to the truly contemporary. There’s even a section of it that’s an eternal DMV line—or whatever you’re calling it on this side of the pond these days. Oh, and my demons wear snappy suits. Dress code, you see.”

Sunglasses made a noncommittal noise, but looked—as far as Crowley could tell—very jealous. “We have wings,” he muttered. “And we keep them very well-groomed.”

They were turning back onto the street with the bookstore on it. Sunglasses parked the Bentley in the same place before. This time, the no parking lines simply disappeared as the car rolled up.

“You know,” Crowley said generously. “Assuming I do find a way back to my universe. If you wanted to visit…I’m sure I could find you work on the crossroads—it’s a lot like tempting, but with far more tangible results. And I generally try to keep threats to my… _useful_ employees to a minimum.” That was almost the truth, at least.

“Really,” Sunglasses said slowly, sounding like he was trying sound far less interested than he actually was.

“Really,” Crowley confirmed.

“Angel?” Sunglasses called as they walked into the bookshop.

The little angel appeared from the backroom. “Oh! Why, hello my dears, I see you’ve brought our new friend back. Just in time. I do believe I’ve gotten the portal reversed—it’s spinning the other way, now, anyway, and everything I dropped in it disappeared instead of bursting into flames. Would you like to give it a try?”

 Sunglasses glanced at Crowley, then back at Aziraphale. “Angel, could we talk?”

“Of course, my dear, of course,” Aziraphale said, and the two of them disappeared into the back room for a few minutes. Crowley wandered around the bookshop, peered at titles, and glared at a few stay customers. Crowley and Aziraphale emerged a few minutes later.

“Your universe does have a London, doesn’t it?” was the first thing Sunglasses asked. “And a Soho? And people who read books?”

“Yes,” Crowley said.

Sunglasses and Aziraphale exchanged a glance.

Then Aziraphale asked: “What can you tell me about Heaven?”

As Crowley sat alone in his dark office later that night with a glass of scotch, the portal finally gone, he supposed he shouldn’t really have ever expected them to come. He reminded himself that he had plenty of friends. Plenty. He didn’t need that Sunglasses…Crowley…or the little angel.

He pulled out his phone and stared at the contact he’d pulled up but not dialed. If the other Crowley could have a non-demon friend, why couldn’t he? It wasn’t like Hell was going to start sending him threatening faxes. And if they did, well, there were other options. (The First Blade sprang to mind.)

He pressed the little green dial button.

“Crowley? What the hell took you so long?” Dean snapped.

It was good to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
